Blog Day 2

Day 2 felt different than day 1. The week off in between was a nice reprieve, but I fear it may have messed up my flow. Everyone was super excited to be back, however, and my students and I were able to learn a lot.

The kids were very excited to start working with clay right away as they walked into class. They also enjoyed experimenting with coloring the clay with markers. Our warm-up went smoothly, and the scribble game afterwards was more of a success than I had initially expected.

The notice and wonder was a learning experience. The class did well on analyzing their artwork, but I should have waited to explain how to do a notice and wonder before passing the sheets out. The kids had really interesting theories on each of the pieces, however. I also should have stopped the activity sooner than I did because groups were finishing up and losing engagement with the lesson.

Moving to the projector for our artist talk was also an experience. I should have better planned the choreography for moving the kids over and where they could put their stools. Many students wanted to sit in front of the projector or close enough to it so that they could make puppets on the screen. This could have been avoided by making clear boundaries of where they could put their stools. Everyone was very excited to share about the artwork they analyzed, though, and there were some good discussions on the new pieces shown to them as well.

I have extremely mixed emotions about the symbolism game following the artist talk. It took a few rounds for students to grasp the game, but they kept wanting to play when I tried to cut it short so it was clear they were enjoying it. Something just felt off the whole time though. it may have been better choreographed if each student had their own whiteboard rather than sharing in a team since everyone wanted to be able to draw on it. This resulted in rounds of the game taking multiple minutes as each person wanted their idea represented. The students also wanted to make detailed drawings for each idea and were often unwilling to move on to the next round without finishing. I completely lost the back table's interest during this game and feel it was extremely hard to reengage them afterward. Long story short, the kids expressed enjoyment in it but I felt it was not something I would do again, at least in the same way.

Moving to the word wall after, I still felt things were very off from the symbolism game. I went around the room asking everyone to give an emotion to put on the wall and most students were responsive, but it was hard to prevent side conversations. I also could not engage the back table at all in giving an example. The emoji sheets were still out from the beginning of class which seemed to help students, but I wish I had taken them away after the word wall activity, if not sooner.

Moving on to sketching, the kids were very engaged in redrawing the emojis in front of them rather than developing their own ideas. I did my best moving around the room and asking how they thought they could enhance their sketches. I asked questions like "What makes you feel that emotion? How could you incorporate that into your sculpture?" Many kids resorted to "happy birthday" as the emotion they wanted to make, which again makes me wish I had removed the emojis since they were heavily relying on them. Some kids did have ideas that stretched beyond emojis, like a mermaid and a duck. I hope when we revisit these sketches next class we will be able to expand on these ideas more.

The "grows" I chose to address during our debrief were my frustration with the stools, the engagement of the back table and re-engaging students as a whole, and my use of gender-inclusive language. I felt confident in my inclusiveness during the first half of the lesson, but noticed as the lesson moved on I slipped into using "you guys" with increasing frequency. I know this is a habit that will take time to grow out of but am hopeful to keep improving next class.

The stools have been a mounting frustration since day one. Students want to wiggle, sit, stand, twist, squeak, raise, lower, and whatever else is possible with them. This causes easy distractions for them, their peers, and even me. One recommendation I was given was to just remove the stools completely which I think I will be trying next class. I also need to work on how I address the issue of the stools with the class, framing my words better and not using phrases like '"Don't do X".

Finally, as far as engaging students, one suggestion I want to try is eliminating the back table completely. I do worry about space at the rest of the tables for the 4-5 students that sit back there but I am hopeful something can be worked out. I also can try using proximity more with them and be conscious of my back being to them. It may also be useful to talk to my assistant and have her move to the other tables more (if I find keeping the back table is necessary) so that I'm not subconsciously staying away from that table because she is there. I also need to work on engaging everyone by holding firm on my quiet signals and not giving directions while students are talking. I was advised that it will be difficult and feel awkward but I need to work through it to keep strong expectations. If students are talking, I need to stop my instruction, and eventually, their peers will catch on as well and encourage them to self-regulate because they want to move on.

I do have at least one confident win from the day, and that was the engagement of one of my students. Last week he was very disengaged, anxious, frustrated, etc. Today, he came in smiling and was more than excited to make art. I was able to see a lot of work come out of him and see him contribute to conversations at his table. That being said, I do need to work on my de-escalation skills for when he finally gave up for the day near the end of class. I need to practice how to talk to students in that headspace get them to recognize what they are feeling and figure out how to reengage them in the lesson.

I am leaving this lesson with lots of lessons of my own to review. However, the students made good progress and I can't wait to see what else they have to bring to the table next week. I am very hopeful about how the class will go and excited about what I have planned.

4. How did you plan and implement the components of Studio Habits of Mind and/or Teaching for Artistic Behavior in your instructional planning and teaching of these two (2) lessons?

·        For this lesson, my focus was to introduce students to our focus artists for this unit and to begin developing their ideas for their clay sculptures. The first part of class was devoted to understanding art worlds. Exampled artwork was passed out to table groups and students engaged in a “notice and wonder” activity. They were allowed to draw on the images and write down their observations while discussing with their peers. This activity was followed by an artist talk, where we discussed the artistic practices of Joan Miro, Mira Makai, and Bruce M. Sherman. Students volunteered to share their discussions with the class when their assigned artwork was displayed. We further discussed the different techniques the artists used, including slabs, limiting supplies, conscious association, and creating spontaneously. The combination of these two activities allowed students to engage and understand artworlds through small group, large group, written, and oral means.

·        The next section of class focused on the studio habit of mind of observe. After providing a definition and 2 examples of symbolism, students were grouped by table and given whiteboards to record their group’s answers. I would show a word on the board, and students had to collaborate to create a symbol for that word. I would also sometimes show a symbol and challenge them to come up with a word or short phrase that the symbol could represent. Some of the results were trees and flowers to represent nature, a dove to represent peace, and an exclamation mark to represent excitement or danger. Understanding symbolism and being able to provide examples will allow students to further develop their ideas for their sculptures and how to portray an emotion visually.

·        The final section of class was dedicated to the studio habit of mind of envisioning. After collaboratively building a word wall of different emotions, students received a sketching paper to plan their sculptures. Students were asked to choose 2-3 emotions and develop a sketch for how they would make a sculpture to represent each of them. If time permitted, they were allowed to create more sketches for their chosen emotions or create sketches for additional emotions. Students used symbols of hearts to represent love, tall buildings to represent fear, and depictions of their siblings to represent annoyed/annoying.

5.  How did you plan and implement Social Emotional Learning (SEL) benchmarks into your two (2) lessons?

·        This lesson implemented the Social Emotional Learning benchmark of 3B.1a. (Identify a range of decisions that they make at school and at home and the effects of those decisions). Students at this age understand that their decisions have effects on things that can happen in the future. By incorporating a sketch planning activity, students had to decide what emotions they wanted to sculpt and how that sculpture would look. These decisions would affect their actions in future classes, as they would have to focus on specific ceramic techniques, such as coiling, slabs, and pinch pots, to sculpt their ideas. Their initial decision of what they wanted their sculpture to look like would determine which of these techniques will be most useful to them when they are sculpting. The incorporation of sketching ideas allows students a chance to enhance their developmental understanding of the effects their decisions have on various aspects of their lives and daily activities at school and at home.

6. A. Did your students meet the learning objective(s) of the lessons?

My students were able to meet all of the learning objectives for this lesson. Following out artist talk, students had a better understanding of art worlds as they continued to discuss the works of our three focus artists. These discussions will be continued into future classes as well as we will continuously reference them. Students were also able to define symbolism and develop their own examples of symbolism following our whiteboard activity. They demonstrated understanding of how multiple symbols can share a meaning, and multiple meanings can share a symbol. Finally, students were able to demonstrate their ability to envision as they developed 2-3 sketches of their sculptures. Some students had many ideas and developed 4 or 5 sketches before settling on their favorite one to pursue in clay.

6. B. List the assessments you used to come to that conclusion.

·        I assessed students’ understanding of art worlds through a notice and wonder activity. Students were given printouts of artwork and allowed to draw and write on them as they noticed and wondered in small groups. They also had a chance to share their ideas with a large group in the lecture to follow. I also utilized whiteboard response to assess students as they practiced the studio habit of mind of observe. When students agreed on an answer to the prompt, they drew or wrote it on the white board and had to hold it up for me to see. After I looked at their responses, they were allowed to erase it and move on to the next prompt. Finally, I assessed the students’ abilities to envision by having them complete a sketching worksheet. Students were given three boxes to draw their ideas in and were asked to complete at least two of them.

6. C. Analyze and discuss how students met or did not meet the learning objectives by citing evidence from your assessment of student learning.

·        During the notice and wonder activity, students worked in small groups and were allowed to draw/write on their assigned artwork. I was able to listen to student discussions and have a physical recording of their ideas from this activity. Somethings students noticed were tear drops cut out of slabs, squiggly lines, and figures that looked like toys. They asked questions about the materials the artists used, who made the artwork, and if the artwork was alive.

·        In the symbolism game, students had to share their team’s answer with me by holding up their whiteboards with their answers. They had to come up with both words and symbols during the activity. After I looked at their responses, they were allowed to erase it and move on to the next prompt. Students gave answers like flowers symbolizing growth, doves symbolizing peace, and exclamation marks symbolizing poison.

·        The completion of their sketching page was the assessment I used to determine if they met the objective relating to envisioning. After collecting the sketching papers, I was able to see that every student created at least 2 sketches and were using some type of symbolism in their sculpture to help portray their emotion. Some of their ideas included mermaids, ducks, heights to represent fear, and hearts to show love.

6. D. Based upon this analysis and discussion of student learning, what will you do next with your students (i.e., reteaching needs, next steps, how to move forward, etc.)?

·        After reviewing their sketches from the end of class, I believe it will be important to review symbolism next class. While the students seemed to understand it during our game, they primarily relied on emojis to represent their chosen emotion. I think I need to elaborate on how they can incorporate other forms of symbolism into their sculptures to help portray their emotions. For example, one student wanted to sculpt fear. I asked her what she was afraid of, and she said heights. In this instance, she could make her sculpture really tall, and maybe put something on top of it. Or she could elaborate more and perhaps show something falling from a great height. I think it would be useful for us to discuss what things make us feel our chosen emotion and try to incorporate those things into our sculptures rather than just creating emojis.

7. A. In what ways did you provide feedback, both planned and in-the-moment, that supported students’ learning and encouraged active participation? Provide specific examples.

·        When observing students during their sketching, I commented on what I saw them creating. Some made great use of expressive lines or color to help convey their emotions. When students claimed they were done after making two quick sketches, I asked them what other details they could add to enhance their ideas. If they were stuck, I asked them prompting questions to help generate ideas. For example, as previously stated, one girl wanted to sculpt fear. I asked her what she was afraid of and how she could add that into her sculpture.

7. B. How did you ensure that this feedback was helpful, constructive, and meaningful to students?

·        To help ensure feedback was meaningful to students, I made sure to asl them questions that related to their interests and opinions. This allowed students to make their artwork more meaningful to them and put deeper thought into their practice of envisioning. It also prompted students to envision further. One student really wanted to make a duck sculpture, so I asked her what kinds of emotions a duck would feel and how it might express those emotions. This prompted students to think more about their ideas and enhance their envisioning practice. This was also an opportunity to remind students of our discussion on symbolism and what symbols they think could represent that emotion (besides an emoji). One girl said axolotls make her happy so I recommended incorporating one into her sculpture. The feedback I was able to provide helped reinforce our learning objectives and practice of the studio habits of mind throughout the class session.

8. How did you address the following principles of culturally responsive and sustaining education in your planning and instruction [see also: your lesson plans in Section 2: Designing Two (2) Consecutive Lessons]:

1. Welcoming and Affirming Environment:

   • To create a welcoming and affirming environment, I focused on having students “Create opportunities for others to join the conversation by asking questions, listening to and acknowledging the opinions of others, and being open-minded to peers.” This was shown through our notice and wonder activity in the lesson. Students had to work in small groups to discuss artwork, asking questions and listening to their peers’ thoughts and opinions.

2. Inclusive Curriculum and Assessment:

   • Inclusive curriculum and assessment are represented in this lesson through “Multiple ways of assessing in-classroom learning that allow all students to demonstrate their knowledge and growth over time, and align to the varied learning styles and interests of those in the class community.” This was done by incorporating small group discussion in our notice and wonder activity as well as oral and written responses. Students were also able to share with the whole class during out lecture. Later, students were able to represent their knowledge visually with a whiteboard activity and a sketching worksheet.

3. High Expectations and Rigorous Instruction:

   • High expectations and rigorous instruction was shown as students were encouraged to “Draw upon your past learning, prior experiences, and the richness of your cultural background to make meaning of new concepts and apply learning on an ongoing basis.” Students did this during our symbolism and sketching activity. They had to reflect on their own person beliefs and cultures to determine what symbols stand for what words. They also had to reflect on their ideas of what emotions are represented as and what makes them feel those emotions.